Why Canceled Fallout 3 Project Was Never Finished

Rough financial times.

By
Alex Osborn

Before making Fallout: New Vegas at Obsidian Entertainment, game director Josh Sawyer served as the lead designer on the canceled Fallout 3 project that was in development at Black Isle Studios. Speaking to IGN, Sawyer shared a few details about the abandoned game, including why it ultimately never game to fruition.

"It's because the parent company of Black Isle Studios, Interplay, was in a difficult financial situation for a really long time," Sawyer explained on the latest episode of IGN Expert Mode. "We had put off working on Fallout 3 for years, working on various other projects... [and] we really didn't get a chance to start working on it until Interplay was already in a lot of trouble."

Staff from Black Isle then left to form Obsidian and "everything kind of collapsed and in the process," Sawyer added, noting that shortly thereafter, "Interplay sold the rights for Fallout to Bethesda."

With regard to his plans for the canceled project, Sawyer pointed to the squad-based game Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel—which featured both real-time and turn-based modes—saying he wanted to make Fallout 3 a turn-based game, but due to pressure from retailers against turn-based games, they planned to compromise and make Fallout 3 a game that offered both real-time and turn-based modes of play.